


The Red Sorceress

by punwitch



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Canon, Gen, mairon reborn, post lord of the rings, steampunk middle earth, trans girl Mairon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-03
Updated: 2013-11-03
Packaged: 2017-12-31 11:04:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1030944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/punwitch/pseuds/punwitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An alt canon post (by 3 centuries) Lord of the Rings fanfic in a steampunk Middle Earth</p><p>Sauron was a much different being than the races of men truly understood. A Maia that possessed a mixture of femininity and masculinity in equal parts, Sauron that was once Mairon was a being of unique gender existence, even among the Maiar. Seduced away from the Valar by Melkor who became Morgorth, she was abused and corrupted by the more powerful being and became his servant. After his fall she sought to make amends by conquering Middle Earth to repair its evils. In all of this a tiny fragment, a remnant of Mairon remained protected and hidden within Sauron safe from corruption, the only part not tied to the One Ring. </p><p>When that Ring was destroyed Sauron was sundered but that remnant remained. A broken Mairon emerged, reduced in power, trapped in a feminine male physical form and forced to rebuild her mind and memories. Her guilt would soon define her and send her on a journey for redemption while she healed the ailments of Arda.</p><p>Taking cue from the Istari, Wizards of Staff & Rod that stood against Mordor, she became The Red Sorceress, seeking to guide and heal, not conquer and force, in a world now much changed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Fellwood

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written on tumblr and as such is a little disjointed (tumblr doesn't lend itself to long posts). I've done my best to patch together the small parts but this definitely should be considered a work in progress. 
> 
> ~kinsey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where a sorceress in red makes a desperate gamble

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter is so short, I wrote all this on tumblr so things were stuck micro chapter format to fit.

Mairon shook before the horror that was The Eldest And Fatherless.

How powerless she had become. There were days, even with the fear of temptation and losing herself again, even with her regrets and painful memories of how Melkor used her, that she missed the power she had with her monster’s cloak around her and that evil ring on her now missing finger. Now, in the Fellwood forest standing next to the crimson Bloodwater river, she felt fear. Terror even. It had once been the tiny and contained Old Forest, wrapped around the pristine Withywindle. Once. When there was no power vacuum. When Old Tom had not been willing to fight against an enemy he respected. An enemy who was now simply prey.

"You look almost elvish, little Maia. Small and broken. No, perhaps human. Human would fit you better." The Devourer’s red eyes pierced her.

Mairon remembered when her eyes were capable of reducing a grown warrior to shaking tears. She remembered when her crimson stare brought down entire nations. Now those same eyes, still red, still with slit pupils, held back tears of panic. Was he going to kill her? He could. Now, as weak as she was, her fire almost out, he really could reduce her to nothing with a glance. She shifted her vision to the beautiful Golden Maiden. She most closely resembled her old guise of Goldberry. Yet you could see the hunger in her eyes, the dagger teeth beneath her lips. Mairon had no illusions about either of those before her. She never did. Their true nature was always apparent to one of the higher Maiar, even as reduced as she now was.

"I…" her voice cracked and she cringed.

Mairon had been trying to speak higher in her throat for many years now. The Middle Earth Cultures of Man did not have the enlightened view of gender that the beings of Valinor or the Khiar empire to the east of Rhun did. Her body’s structure and her gender were considered in conflict here and her existence as a woman was often called into question when she spoke among the men of middle earth. She had discovered quickly how dangerous it was to not fit the narrow gender views of the various north western peoples. She steeled herself and tried again.

"I have come to make a request of you," she paused only a moment and spoke the true name of the Devourer. Not his moniker of Tom, no, the old name whispered in the halls of Valinor before her fall to Melkor's manipulations and abuse. His grin widened beyond what even Mairon was comfortable with seeing.

"Oh ho ho ho, please, make your request, Mairon The Red Sorceress, once Sauron of the Rings and Fallen Queen of Mordor, whom the Men of these lands called King. Far be it for me to be inhospitable to my beloved and respected opponent in games of strategy."

The names were like blows. The shame overwhelmed her and Mairon stumbled, almost to her knees, while The Devourer watched with amusement.

_I am what I am, I wrought what I wrought. I will redeem myself, not wallow in the guilt and self pity of my negligent brethren and our masters._

The words came easier now than they did the first time she said them, when her mind returned to her so many decades ago. Long after she left the shattered lands of Mordor, naked and alone, with no memories of deed or self, the long healing slumber that prevented her complete dissolution into nothingness complete. Those first days were hard, wishing only for death after the full realization of her misdeeds had struck her. To her surprise, far harder than wandering, depending on the compassion of confused strangers who could not decide if she were man or woman, aiding her survival as she struggled to remember. No, she missed those days, when she didn't know what she was or what she had done. Mairon always would.

As always the phrases bolstered Mairon and she felt her will returning. The mistakes of the past would not be repeated. Not ever again.

"I beg you. Please end this campaign of destruction against the species of Man, Dwarves and Hobbits."

"Just them?" The Golden Maiden laughed, a dissonant bell who’s tone went off note near the end, just enough to run shivers down Mairon’s spine, "we shall have every one of the children of this world and this world itself. Surely your request should include all of those we seek to slate out appetites with?"

Mairon steadied her trembling body and wondered if she had elicited such reactions in others in the past.

 _An experience I more than deserve_ , she thought.

Somehow, that gave her greater strength and she pressed on. She rubbed her left fingers over the lost ring finger on her right hand, a nervous habit she had had long before Mordor had fallen the second time, and spoke again.

"Fair enough. I beg you to end your campaign of destruction against this entire world. To retreat or at least not continue to expand and allow the children of these lands to live in peace," Mairon swallowed, "I know that I do not have the sort of power that would compel you to follow my request. So I ask out of your sentimentality. An old favor to an old enemy. Join me in peace."

The Devourer drew in close. Fading from view was the bearded man in blue and yellow. Emerging from him came the truth that Mairon's mind had tried to shield her from, a form she knew was there but ignored out of fear. Details that her eyes quailed from before became too apparent to ignore now. She could see remnants of the disguise he had worn so often peel away from him. The guise of man disappeared into tattered flesh and cloth and hair and the vision that stood before her made bile rise into her throat. A vast monstrosity of mandibles and claws, red vines and gnarled wood shifted closer to her. The scent of rot and death wafted over Mairon and her body began to tremble again. The stinging rankness of the air that left the monster’s mouth brought tears to her eyes. But she did not back away. Even as twisting tendrils, red and veined and covered in postules, wrapped around her shoulders, stomach and back and pulled her closer, she did not flinch away. She did not scream or even whimper. Mairon held firm.

"My dear old friend. You are quite right. I am sentimental. I have missed you for the many decades you slumbered after your defeat," five of his mouths opened and several tongues reached out to lick her face and hair. Mairon clamped her teeth as tight as she could as a scream threatened to escape her.

Do not show weakness. Do not tempt him. She had been a queen of werewolves once. Tom was the worst sort of predator but every hunter of prey still followed their rules. She knew the way to avoid the worst outcome. She just had to stand firm.

"So you will honor my request?" her voice sounded terrified, shaking. Mairon hoped that wouldn’t be the end of her.

The Eldest And Fatherless bellowed a laugh that nearly deafened her. For a few moments she was stunned and had it not been for the one unwelcome tendrils wrapped around her she surely would have fallen limp to the ground. Perhaps even been eaten alive as the result. Tom withdrew from her his vast floral form, the arachnid elements of his abhorrent formation becoming more apparent as clicking claws and vibrating tails coated in chitin shifted beneath the moss, leaves and vines. Mairon felt he most resembled a merging of predatory plant and corrupted centipede or spider. She barely got her footing before the tendrils released her. Her legs shook and she thanked her luck that he hadn’t noticed how she near collapse she was.

"Of course not. My sentimentality only goes so far. You are the one I will spare, my lovely Mairon," he rumbled with another laugh, vines and tendrils twisting over him, "you have always intrigued me. A being of duality, with such a divine gender as you have. A Maia who cared enough for this world that you were capable of becoming its destroyer with the right push. Tell me, did the Vala Melkor even have to try or did he bat his pretty eyelashes at you and melt your loins away?”

Mairon felt her body fill with both rage and hurt. The memories of Melkor, his abuse and manipulation of her, his lies and empty promises, still cut her deeply. She had murdered for him, stole for him, aided him in his destruction of the trees and filled the lands of Arda will horrors because of that man. She couldn't blame him for his misdeeds, but she could blame him for abusing her and pulling her into his evil. She could blame him for destroying her. The killing blow may have been delivered by a hobbit but she had been a ruined husk long before the ring melted in the fires of her old mountain forge and Melkor was to blame.

Yet as much as she hated to admit it, she still loved him. His loss still pained her. But for this abomination to slap her in the face with such a statement, how dare he. She had still been of the high Maiar. Such insults were beneath her.

"What does a being like you know of such things," she said, venom dripping in her voice, "I am sure you prefer to copulate with yourself in the end."

Mairon froze as The Golden Maiden hissed.

_No. Oh no I’ve gone too far._

But the hissing quieted as Tom laughed and laughed. His grotesque body shook, leaves and fungi clumps falling to the forest floor. His red chitinous armor, intermixed with wooden textures, shook and rattled on his hulking body. Pincers snapped and scorpion tails waved, dripping red poison in every direction. His eighteen mouths guffawed with wild abandon and the thousand eyes on his body all opened and closed at random. His bulk fell down on the forest floor as his laughter robbed him of his power to stand. After what seemed like an age had passed his mirth finally stopped. Isolated giggles escaped a few of the mouths and The Devourer returned to a standing position.

"You truly are my favorite, Mairon," he said, "even when this entire world lays in waste before me, I will never touch a single copper hinted golden hair on your head. You are truly the most precious thing to me. Even with the sad and pathetic prey you have become, taken over by compassion and guilt in equal parts, it is of endless amusement to me that something of the haughty and arrogant Sauron remains in you."

Mairon held back tears. This really wasn’t going to work. She wasn’t here to save herself! It wasn’t about her anymore! Tom raised a single claw in a gesture that was so human it disturbed her.

"I will postpone my expansion for a hundred years, because you have given me such glorious things to laugh about," he chuckled, "I will not stop the attacks on the industrial fortress of Bree as I have already marked that as mine. And The Shire has already been absorbed into my forest. But the rest of the Alliance will be safe for a time. Perhaps you will find a way to protect some of your precious mortals in the meantime."

He shifted his bulk closer to her and brought his two largest eyes to her face.

"I suggest you take them from this world and make another. Get the Valar to help you if you are still too weak. In the end, this will all be mine."

"Why, Tom," Mairon knew the question was foolish before even asking it but her despair gave her no other choice, "have you no compassion?"

Tom grinned with all eighteen mouths. A wall of red daggers intermixed with the scent of death faced down the sorceress in red before him.

"It is not in my nature to be compassionate. I am the one that cleans the rotted worlds. I make room for what must come. Worlds end and I eat the remains. You, fallen Maia, could have brought order to this dying world, after Morgorth that was Melkor of the Valar was cast into the void," he stated with amusement, "had you surrendered to the Valar and sought their aid instead of trying to fix Arda's flaws by conquering it, in your foolish corrupted state, perhaps you could have brought it back from the brink. But the rot remained. You failed."

Mairon felt hot tears running down her face. She no longer cared about showing weakness. All she had done was bought time. In the end everything was still doomed.

"You had your chance, Queen of Mordor. Now this world is mine. Run, little Mairon. Run away in fear of me." His bellowing laughter followed the woman in red as she fled Fellwood for the fortified city of Bree, tears streaming from eyes of crimson.

*                                        *                                           *

The banners of The Alliance Of Bree whipped in the violent winds raging over Thornwall Fortress. Dark clouds rumbled far above the major industrial city of Bree, the capital of the Alliance and the front line against the growing Fellwood Forest. The Alliance had fallen on hard times over just a simple decade. The loss of the Shire to the murderous red veined trees and monsters of Fellwood had been a grevious blow to both the fledgling nation and Hobbitkind. Not since the end of the Third Age and the war of Mordor had there been this much fear for the survival of the mortal races of Middle Earth this far west. Not that anyone really remembered that there had once been immortal races in Middle Earth. The Elves were merely legends now, so many centuries left behind.

A person in a femininely cut traveler's cloak, black with red designs and trim walked with care in the muddy roadway within the city. A face, beautiful but tired, stayed mostly hidden within the shadows of her hood. A few hints of copper and gold curls peeped from that same concealment. Centuries before now, some might have looked upon such a person and said they were of elvish descent, despite the lack of pointed ear and sharp eyebrow. Now far different things were said, disparaging things, remarks on a womanly appearance on a man being the worst sort.

"Miss, you should step indoors, it will soon be storming. The Forester’s Courage Inn is very close, just down that way."

The young man gestured down the street for the figure in red and black.

She paused and sighed, after all one couldn't expect to walk alone without mention in Bree. She pulled her hood away from her face.

"A storm is indeed nearby but I doubt a simple inn will let us weather it," she mumbled as gold and copper curls tumbled out of her hood.

The young Breelander man gasped, first at her hair and then at her eyes as she looked up at him.

"Your eyes… miss. They are…"

"Red? Cat like?" Mairon said sourly, already tired of the inevitable reaction, "a circumstance of my birth. I assure you that I bleed just as you and hunger and thirst for food and drink like any other."

"I… are… are you a man?"

That startled her and she gritted her teeth. Her vocal control still left a great deal to be desired. It would be better not to explain. The cultures of Middle Earth were too rigid in their views of body and gender for an explanation to yield her good results with a stranger. Mairon's experiences in the Khiar Empire had been far better. Such an existence had a place in their societies, although under much different names than she was accustomed to and in quite a few different forms. It had in fact been her good luck to have been taken in by a Khiar couple living near the Mirkwood of old during her broken wandering times. The lost Elves who remained behind had been a good source of acceptance as well and for quite some time she had pretended to have elven blood while such a thing was still somewhat known of. Unfortunately with the elves long gone and forgotten by the common man, the bloodlines disappearing into humanity, she could no longer hide behind the excuse of elven blooded androgyny. Not that her ears were quite right for such a thing anyways.

"I merely have a deep voice," she said curtly, staring him down with her unnerving eyes, "are all Breelanders this rude to travelers?"

"I… no… I am so deeply sorry miss," he gave a nervous bow, "May I escort you to Forester’s Courage as an apology? My name is Willim. Willim Thistlewind."

"Of course. But I actually require escort to Thornwall’s central court. I have a meeting with High General Namira Woodflame that I may be late for."

Willim stared at her gape jawed. Who was this strange eyed, deep voiced woman and why was she meeting with the highest commander of the armed forces of Bree’s largest fortress and the one responsible for holding back The Fellwood?

"Oh, I apologize. My name," she laughed more gently and Willim felt himself relax. She was pretty when she gave a genuine smile, "Mairon. Mairon The Red. It is a pleasure to meet you."

Willim bowed with a smile and crooked his arm in hers.

"So mi’lady Mairon, may I escort you to Namira’s court? It would be a shame if you were late," he said with a smile.

"It would be a shame indeed," she said demurely.

 _Unfortunately_ , she thought to herself,  _I am already centuries too late._

Above the war torn industrial city of Bree, surrounded by walls of metal and stone sprouting with black powder cannons, bordered on the west by the tangled misty expanse of the Fellwood, dark clouds brewed and lightning flashed.

A storm was coming.


	2. The Sorceress And The General

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Danger comes to the capital of the Alliance of Bree. A Sorceress in Red seeks out an old friend to give a warning and to ready plans for the evil that is to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhh sorry this is a really short chapter. Again I wrote chapter one and two on tumblr so they ended up being ungodly short. Things will get better for three on since I'm writing purely on Ao3 now.

Mairon walked with Willim through the western gate as the steam engines of Thornwall belched white vapor towards the dark clouds above.

The vast metal and stone gate itself withdrew to either side, pulled by an intricate gear and pulley system on a metal track built into the floor of Thornwall. They were a more recent addition to fortresses in Middle Earth, emulating designs from the Khiar’s vast Iron Cities beyond the Rhûn. New Helm, built upon the labyrinthine ruins of Helm’s Deep was one of the first cities of the west to emulate the concept of the Khiar Empire’s fortifications and technology in full. The engines allowed far heavier and thicker gates, traditionally the weakest point of any strong wall and faster closure of them despite their size, even in the thick of battle.

Bree had followed suit quickly. The city itself possessed massive walls around every part and two additional fortresses beyond Thornwall, occupying a corner each of the triangular shape of the thrice rebuilt city. Even with such fortifications, Bree regularly was breached by monsters of Fellwood, forcing the people of city to take shelter in Thornwall, Axeguard and Took’s Will, whichever fortress was closer.

"To be honest, I’m sad you won’t get an opportunity to see Took’s Will," Willim remarked with a smile to Mairon as they strode into the fortress, "it’s the oldest of the three corners of Bree."

"Ah yes, the one named after the Hero Of The Hobbits, if I remember correctly. Marigold Took. Sometimes called Spiderbane of the Shire That Was."

"Oh so you know the history of the area," the young man seemed impressed, "most outsiders from the Alliance don’t even know the Shire exists, unless they’re hobbits."

"Well I must say, I am certainly not a hobbit," Mairon said with a wry grin.

She kept the truth to herself, that she had been around long before the Fellwood had even turned foul. Long before Bree and The Shire existed. But those memories would always be hazy, a side effect of the shattering of her self that left her, broken and slumbering in the dead lands of Mordor for almost decades.

Mairon had not been in Bree-Land when the Shire was taken by The Devourer. But she had been in living in a small village outside New Helm and news traveled quite quickly in those difficult days. Even as broken as she had still been, barely comprehending who she was and what she had done, she remembered well the tales that came through the region of Rohan.

Marigold Took, once a flighty and young hobbit with not a care in the world had become the grim General Took, Hero of The Hobbits, Spiderbane and the Saviour of Bree during the Fell Tide that struck only five short years after The Shire had been completely destroyed. The hobbits of the Shire had escaped to Bree only because of her, those that remained became food for the Eldest and Fatherless. Or worse.

"Leaf’s bane burned from one hand, spider’s foe glinted in her other. They say a Took defended the Shire with the fury of a cub’s mother," Mairon found herself singing in a quiet reverent tone, "Hobbitkind thanks her this day, saviour of her people. The General Took, Red Tom’s foe, a marigold that grew despite evil."

Willim blinked and stared at her and she looked back, surprised herself at the sudden slip.

"That’s a very old song, m’lady. Perhaps you really did live in the Alliance, at some point yes?"

"A lady never divulges her secrets, Willim," Mairon said softly and looked away from him at the tapestries they passed in the hall. 

The moisture in her eyes would stop soon, she hoped. Marigold Took was the descendant of another Took who’s youthful innocence had been taken far too early. She had many debts she could never repay. But she would try. Saving those threatened by the Fellwood was a good step towards atonement. Her first truly large action in Middle Earth. Before she had simply been healing wounds and negotiating truces between tiny warring nations in the broken lands of Gondor. Now she faced a massive evil that sought to devour the world. Mairon had delayed it but perhaps she found find a way to truly stop it. 

The issue was deeper than the Fellwood however. Mairon knew well enough that there was a rot driving these horrid changes in Middle Earth. The rot was the reason The Devourer was readying himself to eat this world. Something was already killing it. Something had left seeds of destruction within Arda. It was a state of affairs she, as one who was once a tool of the greatest evil Arda had ever known, felt more than a little responsibility for. 

"We are here m’lady," Willim gestured to the large doorway emblazoned with the seal of The Alliance of Bree, a woodcutter’s axe and leaf covered branch set ablaze, crossed behind a simple and iconic castle similar to the architecture of old Arnor.

Mairon wiped her eyes in a single covert motion and steeled herself. 

What she had come to tell Namira would not go over well. The young General was fiercely loyal to Bree and the Alliance, due in no small part to the high visibility of her Khiar ancestry and the treatment it drew her. Her wavy black hair, her brown skin and eyes of sienna flecked dark amber left little doubt where her bloodline came from. Unfortunately the xenophobia of Middle Earth was alive and well even in the besieged Bree, who could not afford such bigotry in a war against the implacable Fellwood. Every Breelander who doubted her loyalty to the land she had been born and raised in hardened her resolve to protect it from any threat. 

Mairon hoped that did not include threats against which retreat was the only option.

She breathed deep and pushed open the doors. The steward of the Hall of Thornwall recognized her as she strolled into the massive room between the wooden seats towards the desk of the High General. Ornate carvings decorated the walls, depicting stories of Bree-Land’s war against the forest that slowly sought to devour it whole since the fall of Mordor led to the Age of Man, followed swiftly by The Age of Steam and Gear.

"The Steward of the Court announces The Red Sorceress, known to Greenwall and the Dales as Dagny The Red, to New Helm and Edolas as The Crimson Wanderer and Myrilhend to The White Tree Republic and other nations of Gondor"

Willim gaped for a few moments, unsure who the steward was speaking of. The realization struck him as Mairon continued to stroll forward. His eyes widened at the fame of the woman he had escorted into Thornwall. To be known across Middle Earth by so many names? Truly who was this strange Mairon?

Namira Woodflame looked up and met Mairon’s eyes as she strolled. Namira grimaced and raised herself from her seat behind her desk, matching pace with Mairon and approaching her down the steps.

She pushed away her displeasure and showed a half smile to the red cloaked figure with reddish gold hair and cat slit eyes before her. They embraced.

"It has been long, Mairon of Many Names," a sardonic humor danced in Namira’s eyes, "I am glad you survived your fool’s errand in the Fellwood. Very few would be capable of such a boast."

"I would love to claim my talents allowed my return but it seemed more luck than anything that kept me from harm," Mairon said as they released each other, "my dear friend, there is scant time for pleasantries. We must discuss a matter of urgent importance."

Namira motioned to several servants and walked back up the stairs to her desk. Mairon stood before her as she sat. A trust and rapport had long been present between the two women. Mairon had defended Namira and her ancestry to the Council of the Alliance more than once and Namira had shown staunch and unwavering acceptance of Mairon's womanhood even in the difficult environment she lived in, with every action under scrutiny. The two recognized allies in the other that were of immense importance. But it had not stopped there. They had grown close, confided in each other their secrets. Namira knew of Mairon's past and while she had trouble believing it she knew Mairon did not lie. So friendship blossomed between allies and the love of close comrades took hold. Regardless of their arguments, Namira and Mairon had the utmost trust for each other.

"I take it you did not achieve the goal of your journey into the Fellwood, yes?" Namira said dryly, "although I can’t be sure since you were so very cryptic about it."

Normally Namira’s teasing was a comfort to Mairon, something that gave her a sense of belonging in a world where she no longer had a place or purpose beyond the one she created for herself. But now it was only yet another delay.

"I won’t mince words this time, my dear friend. I sought to negotiate with the heart of the Fellwood itself, the monstrosity at its center," she stated, "and I gained a measure of success but failed overall. The Fellwood will lie dormant for one hundred years."

Namira clapped her hands together and smiled, “that does not sound like failure to me, my friend.”

Mairon raised a single hand in the air in protest.

"I have not finished, High General. The Fellwood may have given a delay to the world but not to Bree. I was not able to safeguard this city. "

"Such is not your responsibility, my friend," Namira waved a dismissive hand and smiled at the woman before her, "I was given the charge to defend Bree from all threats. So you failed to negotiate a truce with the forces of evil. We shall simply continue to fight as we always have."

"Namira, you don’t understand. We must make a plan of evacuation. Things will accelerate, the Fell-"

"The Steward of The Court announces an unknown man in blue and yellow."

Mairon froze. Namira looked past her with disinterested eyes as she turned around to see the newcomer.

"Dear Steward of the Court, the man before is but a merry fellow. A jacket of the brightest blue he wears with lovely boots of yellow."

Mairon’s blood ran cold even before the man came into view.

"Announce him properly, without a voice so chill. For this merry man is none other than the charming Tom Bombadil."

She tried to force air into and out her lungs, hands trembling within her cloak as an old and merry man dressed in blue and yellow finery strolled down the same path she did looking her in the eye. To the mortal men and women and hobbits within, none of whom remembered the name used so long, that was all they saw. To the eyes of a spirit that was once of the Maiar, even broken and made into something new as she was, the sight was quite different.

"You’re here," she whispered, "how? You can’t leave the forest. It’s boundaries are yours."

"Dear crimson lady, lovely dethroned queen. Why do you tremble so, as though what you see is obscene?"

Tom grinned and danced about as he approached. Namira blinked at the frozen Mairon and motioned to her guards, already aware that something was wrong. Mairon herself begged her body to back away as Tom drew closer but she found her muscles as locked as they were in the Fellwood itself. He drew close to her and whispered in her ear, his whiskers ticking her.

"I’ll tell you a secret little Mairon. The forest does not trap me. It is not a boundary. It is not that I cannot leave. I  **am**  Fellwood. I have always been.”

He pulled away from her horrified face and danced back to the center, even as the guards closed around him and Namira rose from her desk drawing a sword.

"Tom Bombadil is just a merry flower, bright blue his petals are and yellow is his bower! The flower is but the tip, not the entire whole you see. The roots fill the earth like snakes, all crawling under Bree!"

His mouth opened to reveal red knives and an inhuman sound tore forth from him. Tom Bombadil’s body disintegrated into red and dark green leaves and clumps of fungus, scattering about into the guards who surrounded him. They screamed in pain as veins of red covered their faces and slithered into their eyes. Willim stumbled backwards towards the door as the guards, their faces twisted with red lines, their eyes and mouths spilling crimson upon the floor, turned to him with swords raised. Mairon shook herself of her fear and raised both hands. Two of the guards turned towards her and Namira, who let out a cry of anguish at their transformation. Sparks crackled over her fingertips and a thunderous crash filled the room as a forking lance of orange lightning speared through several of the corrupted guards, burning gaping holes through their chests. Namira jumped to action as well, her sword flashing as she lunged forward and dispatched the closest abomination. A crimson veined head rolled under the seats and the body fell before her. Willim himself was saved by the guards in the hall who had heard the commotion and were now fighting their former comrades.

"Enough!" Mairon roared and lifted her hand. Red hot blades of iron, massive and long, tore their way through the stone floor and impaled the remaining corrupted guards. They hung from the cooling metal as Mairon let her trembling hand fall. The smell of sizzling flesh and the cloying sickly sweet odor of Bloodwater river mixed in the room. Willim vomited in a corner.

"Mairon," Namira’s face was grim, "I’m listening now."

"I am sorry that my warning comes so late, Namira," she said, breathing heavily from the exertion of magic, "I had not imagined that he would…"

The gonging tones of war bells cut her off. The means of warning when the Fellwood attempted to advance. But Thornwall was on the opposite side of Bree, why were the bells ringing here?

Mairon, Namira and the guards, dragging a nauseated Willim, ran for the closest watchtower stairs, even as Namira shouted orders to deploy to messengers as they came into view. Mairon reached the top first, the sound of bells from every direction assaulting her ears. Bells from all parts of Bree. Every fortress.

She reached the top and gasped when she saw what lie before her.

The entire city of Bree was surrounded by misty green veined in red as torrents of rain fell. More twisted trees rose around the walls, springing up from the earth in mere moments. Furtive shadows crawled, scurried and jumped at every wall as the blasts of black powder cannons and the crackling of thunder dueled for their place in Mairon’s ears. Warning bells rang their song of doom.

The Fellwood had come for them.


End file.
